I was going to write about how the news of Osama bin Laden’s death developed Sunday night on Twitter, especially since I happened to be browsing tweets when the first word of the “10:30 p.m.” announcement appeared. But Twitter has eliminated the time-stamp feature for tweets, so now I can’t figure out the exact sequence of events that night. I hope Twitter brings that feature back.

In the meantime, I want to complain about something: There are too many people trying to create Internet memes, including myself. On Monday, a photograph was posted on the White House Flickr account showing President Obama and others in the White House Situation room watching the bin Laden raid. Within an hour, altered versions of the image began showing up on the Internet. The first ones I saw featured the frowning flower girl from Friday’s royal wedding, a surprised cat, sad Keanu Reeves, and Rick Astley. In my opinion, none were particularly clever or funny. More

Have you ever visited 4chan? Specifically, have you dared to look at the /b/ message board? It’s the birthplace of the first lolcat and other great and fun Internet memes. It’s also completely NSFW, and definitely a site some people with certain sensibilities should never visit. For one thing, you will have to wade through a lot of porn and shock imagery. And you have to be cautious not to cross the regular denizens of /b/. Just check out what happened to this poor girl and her angry father (here’s the remixed video). 4chan is also the hangout for the hacker collective Anonymous. But the site is no joke: It gets 12 million visitors a month. So how do you enjoy the fun stuff while skipping the insanity? Enter Canvas, the creation of Christopher Poole, aka “Moot,” the founder of 4chan. More

Got an invite for Canvas, or http://canv.as. It’s the new website (in beta mode) by the founder of 4chan, Christopher “Moot” Poole. I’m testing it and will write more soon, but I wanted to share my first creation on Canvas with you, my two readers. Yay, Kendra! And pickles!

Adrian Chen of the Gawker blog Valleywag has an amusing post about a 4chan meetup at a bar in Brooklyn on Jan. 14. A little bit of the history between 4chan and Gawker is explained, but what struck Chen was how “normal” everyone was:

People slowly accreted around the table, and there were maybe 30 or 40 by the time 4chan’s 22-year-old founder, Chris “Moot” Poole, showed up. Moot lives in Manhattan, where he’s currently working on a new start-up called Canvas Networks. He was instantly swamped by fans. A Filipino guy next to me freaked out: “In all of my 23 years, this is the first time I’ve ever met a celebrity!” He had come all the way from Connecticut, where he works at Dunkin’ Donuts.

Well, I assume the true weirdos wouldn’t show up at a bar in Brooklyn. They were online in their basements.

“When I was growing up, my parents often warned me not to open the basement doors. “Never open the basement doors!” they said again & again. One day, I DID open the basement doors, and I saw the most amazing things – trees, our back yard and the sky!” – Emo Philips